Business As Usual
by SteveGarbage
Summary: Maker damn her. Maker damn him. Maker damn this entire city. He wished a giant Qunari warrior would kick down his door and chop off his head some days. Today was shaping up to be one of those days.


The trumpets signalling the changing of the guard stirred him out of sleep as it had every day for the last three days.

Sleeping on the large couch in the Viscount's office prevented him from having to go home to his moody wife and their needy son. And while there was always the chance he would be woken by the boy dragging his sticky mitts down his face at dawn instead of being able to sleep in, the interruption of the clockwork guardsmen was an inevitable annoyance of sleeping here.

Bran sat up, moving to the edge of the couch and placing his bare feet on the cold stone. His head drooped into his palms, rubbing his face to try to force some feeling into it as a large yawn stretched his jaw. The sun was just creeping over the east walls now, orange sunrays slipping through the window behind the imposing oaken desk at the back wall.

Serendipity was still dozing quietly on the floor, her dress draped lazily over her handsome and masculine body. She was still asleep, somehow, despite the blare of trumpets. Bran nudged her with his foot, lightly kicking her until she stirred.

"Wake up, darling," Bran said. "It's morning."

Serendipity rubbed her eyes, her face twisting in a pained expression at the realization she had been sleeping on the hard floor all night. She propped herself up on her elbows, scowling, one eye just slipping open and the other too filled with sleep to move.

"Good morning," she said flatly in her deep voice, the usual sweet playfulness gone at this early hour. She was always grumpy in the morning.

"Please use the back door on your way out this morning," Bran said, scratching his fingers through his red hair. "One of the nobles spotted you last time. Kirkwall is not in the best financial state and the Viscount's office has little left spare in the way of bribes this quarter. Hard enough running this dump of a city without having to try to figure out where I'm going to shuffle money around."

Serendipity began to slide back into her dress, pulling it over her thin elven legs and up her flat, boyish chest. "You could always hire a few throatcutters out of Lowtown at a fraction of the cost," she offered.

Bran snickered at the thought. "Yes. I can't decide what's more depressing, that Kirkwall is home to such seedy individuals or that I had already thought of that," he said. "Now run along. Tell Lusine I'll send along payment by the end of the week for your services."

Serendipity stood, bent and planted a kiss upon his cheek. "I'll see you later, Viscount."

Bran shooed her away with a hand, groaning as he rubbed his left temple, the thumping of a headache already forming. "It's _Provisional_ Viscount!" he shouted as she bounded out the back door.

The door shut and Bran looked around his prison — office, it was an office — he reminded himself. The walls were still standing around him, he didn't see the smoke of fires consuming the city out of the window and there were no godless barbarians bludgeoning down his door. Kirkwall survived another night, so it seemed. Bran had to swallow down his joy.

He shuffled to the corner, relieving himself into the dirt of the large ceramic pot holding the potted tree. The leaves were growing brown and brittle with miscare. Although the corner smelled suspiciously like piss, so did the rest of the city. By the time visiting heads of state or noble callers arrived in his office, their noses would be blind to the scent of dank urine anyway. The plant would get at least some sustenance, more so than if he called for someone to come up and water it. He had tried that five days ago and was still awaiting the arrival of some sniveling servant carrying a pitcher.

Bran went the wardrobe, opening the door, dipping the dirty rag into the stale water in the washbasin. He rubbed it across his face, ignoring the stench of lingering body odor and dirt on it, scrubbing his neck, quickly wiping it across his chest and under his armpits before tossing it back onto its hook. He scooped a bit of water into his hands, splashing it across his face, pouring it over his head. He ran his hands through his red locks, growing too long, needing a trim, parting his hair to the side. He hadn't shaven recently and the small dusting of stubble across his jaw was now approaching beard status. Perhaps tomorrow.

He lifted the ceramic bowl from its holder, shuffling across the room, yawning widely again, and dumped the dirty water into the pot of the other small tree in the opposite corner behind his desk. This one, getting the wash water instead of the urine, was slightly more green but also drooping and rotting. Just like the rest of the city. He shuffled back the other way, placing the washbasin gently back in place, removing a crisp shirt and clean pair of pants from the wardrobe and slipping into them.

Bran headed toward the couch, bending down to pick up the ball gag, the handcuffs and the riding crop from the floor. He tugged open the bottom right drawer of the desk, dropping them back into place, shutting it and turning the key in the small lock. He stretched, his arms reaching high above his head as a third yawn poured from his mouth, pulling all of the air deep out of his chest. There was no food in the office. He hoped he could track down a servant to fetch him something. _He_ didn't have a seneschal to run petty errands for he so often had to do for Viscount Dumar.

Bran pulled the bag out of the top right drawer, sprinkling a little of the white spice on the desk. He pressed his nose down to the table, snorting it up. It burned all the way up his nostrils. He shook his head, smacking his cheeks to try to spur himself awake.

"Ugh, Maker, I needed that," he said to himself.

He stepped to the office door, his hand resting on the handle. Perhaps today would be the day the nobles finally finished their squabbling and named a new Viscount. Without the Templars there to breathe down their necks and wag their swords in the nobility's faces, the Kirkwaller gentry had proved themselves to be even more spineless and inept than he had originally dreamed.

All they had been able to agree on since Knight Commander Meredith's death was that Bran was the only person familiar enough with the city and capable enough to run Kirkwall in the absence of a Viscount. They had nodded their stupid heads up and down wildly on that point. Everything else was an argument, posturing and inane gibbering back and forth.

He had a vote in the council of lords. He had already told the others he would vote for any candidate who was not him. They had failed to provide any options, so far, to his dismay.

Bran sighed, twisted the handle, and opened the door.

"Good morning, Viscount."

The Guard Captain was waiting outside his door. How long had Aveline been standing there? Probably since the morning trumpet that stirred him out of bed. She plopped a pile of papers into her husband's hands, sealed it with a goodbye kiss on his cheek. Lieutenant Donnic returned to his duties. Nepotism, at its finest, he was sure, but he had stopped caring too long ago to do anything about it. Fewer nobles were getting pickpocketed in the market and fewer bodies turned up in the harbor every morning. Considering the history in Kirkwall, both were wins.

Aveline extended a small plate with a hot, buttered roll to Bran.

He snatched the plate from her. "It's _Provisional_ Viscount, Guard Captain," he said annoyed. He waved her into the office, turning his back to her as he crossed the room back to his desk. "What is it this morning, Aveline? We're still all alive, so I take that as a good sign, I guess."

She marched forward, stopping three paces from the front of the desk, in the exact same spot she stood every morning. He was afraid she would wear the carpet bare.

"The Starkhaven engineers have completed another trebuchet. They put it to the test last night. The stone struck a watchtower on the northeast wall. No injuries, but the tower is badly damaged," Aveline reported.

He sat down with some discomfort as his rear touched the padded chair. He was incredibly sore from last night. Serendipity had whipped him raw. Her backdoor assault on his castle had been much more spirited than anything Starkhaven could muster.

Bran tore a piece from the roll, minding not to get the greasy butter on his fingertips. "Well, we don't have any coin to fix _that."_

The siege was porous at best. The Starkhaveners didn't blockade the port, so supplies continued to flow in and out of the city. Some refugees had fled on ships, but most people in the city ignored the fluttering white and gold banners of the other Marcher city with little respect. There were enough sewer pipes, smugglers routes and underground tunnels running out of the city that there was little concern about starving to death. True, the army of soldiers sitting outside the city had cut off land-bound trade, but there were few merchants who had been taking the overland passage anyway since the Chantry so spectacularly exploded.

The Champion had let the insane apostate live for some reason beyond anything Bran cared to explore or understand. That had royally, literally royally, pissed off Sebastian Vael. One minimally bloody succession crisis in Starkhaven and he reclaimed their throne, immediately turning his newly-won army toward Kirkwall, claiming some sort of unofficial Exalted March against the city.

Bran had tried to tell him the Champion was gone. The apostate was gone. All of the Champion's other associates, outside of the harmless elf mage, were gone. The Knight Commander and First Enchanter were both dead. The Seekers of Truth had stormed the city, rounded up dozens of people, and then left without burning it down. The Knight Captain had gone south with them. Andraste hadn't poured holy fire down on the city from the sky, either.

He didn't know what the Prince of Starkhaven was hoping to accomplish. Boys with toys.

If Vael did manage to get into the city, Kirkwall was notorious for being difficult to conquer. The city had been built with a mind for sealing and preventing slave rebellions after all. A borough could be locked down in less than an hour and storming the citadel was a treacherous march up through multiple poorer quarters that Bran wouldn't hesitate to watch burn. Burning them might rid the city of some of the trash and filth that accumulated below, actually.

The Qunari _had_ fought their way all the way to the top and killed Dumar, true. But pious Starkhaveners were hardly Qunari killers. He paid little heed to Vael, as was fitting.

"That brings their total to four trebuchets," Aveline reminded him. "It is enough to do serious damage to our our walls under a long and concentrated barrage."

"It would take him a week to breach the wall," Bran said dismissively. He wasn't an expert on warfare, but even he knew how thick Kirkwall's walls were. "If he can find enough stones outside the city to try, let him."

Aveline scowled in that unattractive, semi-restrained manner she always did where she folded her lips into her mouth, looking like a withered old woman bereft of teeth and clasped her hands behind her back.

"What do you want, now?" Bran asked impatiently, dropping another piece of the roll onto his tongue.

"I need more guardsmen. If we're going to withstand an assault, I need to begin training them now so they're ready in a month." Aveline said.

Bran rubbed his left temple. That pounding was growing a little fiercer. "Didn't I just give you more guardsmen a week ago?"

"It was four weeks ago and you only gave a tenth of what I needed," Aveline said.

"How many?"

"At least sixty."

Bran groaned and shook his head. "How about ten?"

"Forty."

"Fine," Bran said. She had high-balled. She probably only needed ten. He didn't feel like fighting her today. Not with a headache.

"No nobles. I don't care how well they know how to fight. I won't have my office filled with angry mothers yelling my ear off about how their darling son has to dirty his boots patrolling in Lowtown and how the Guard Captain was rude to her when she complained in _your_ office," he said with fatigue in his breath. "Do you understand me, Aveline?"

Aveline nodded. "I'll see who I can find coming in at the docks."

"Try Darktown," Bran suggested. "You could pay them half and they'll appreciate a bed and three square meals."

The office shook, a crash and rumble vibrating through the walls of the Citadel. A second vibration hit, a little softer, more bass to it, pulsing through the floorboards.

"Seems like the Prince wants to play with his toys this morning," Bran said. He waved his hand to dismiss Aveline. "Go away. Don't come back today unless they're in Hightown. Even then, consider not coming back. Close the door on your way out."

She went, unhappily. Same as every day. She slammed the door. His headache rattled.

There was another loud crash outside and his chair wobbled. He picked apart the roll, wishing he had some coffee. Of course there was no one to fetch him coffee. He needed to find a reliable elf. One who couldn't read. One who spent a lot of time at the partially rebuilt chantry and had a good sense of morals. Preferably one who was mute, too.

He reached into the bottom left drawer and pulled out the bottle of bourbon and the dirty glass that was stained brown and carrying an opaque film of dried spit around the rim. He uncorked the bottle and poured it halfway full, stopped, and spilled a little more in. Typically he waited an hour after Aveline's morning visit, but his head was aching. He lifted the glass and swigged it down. It hardly even burned this morning.

He poured another.

There was a hard rapping at the door. "Viscount Bran! Viscount Bran! It is Diann Dorrell and I demand to speak with you immediately about this lawless rabble I continue to see nightly on the streets of Hightown! " Her shrill, nagging voice was muffled by the thick, closed door, but it still cut like an axe right into the crevices of his skull where his brain was already aching.

"For the last Maker-damned time," he shouted back. "It's _Provisional_ Viscount!"

There was a momentary pause.

"Provisional Viscount Bran!" she shouted again, no less insufferable than the first time. "Open this door immediately!" The handle jiggled loudly and angrily.

How thankful he was that the door locked itself when it closed.

Bran lifted the glass again, but just before his lips he place it back down and slid it toward the side of his desk. He stared with hate at the door, the handles still jiggling as he tuned out the continuous yelling still bleeding through the hardwood. He reached down, pulling open the top right draw and lifting the bag of spice out again.

He tipped it toward the desktop, shaking out a little bit onto the stack of letters he hadn't read from yesterday, or the day before. The white powder covered the impudent demands and fatuous platitudes scrawled out in black ink.

Bran folded the page in half, the powder slipping into the crease of the paper. He cocked back his head, placing the sharply folded corner to his nose and tipped, inhaling every last crumb of the spice.

He blinked his eyes, sniffled, rubbed his nose with the back of his other hand. Bran was just starting to feel awake now.

"Provisional Viscount Bran! You are a public servant and-"

"I'm coming!" he shouted back angrily. Maker damn her. Maker damn him. Maker damn this entire city. He wished a giant Qunari warrior would kick down his door and chop off his head some days. Today was shaping up to be one of those days.

He placed the paper softly back down on the table in its pile and pushed himself up from the desk with a groan, heading for the door.

He placed his hand on the door handle. Sighed. Sniffled. Wiped his nose again to make sure there were no traces of powder caked on his nostril. Sighed a second time. Hit his forehead lightly against the door.

Bran forced a small, pleasant smile onto his face and turned the handle.

Business as usual.


End file.
